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David Baldacci is no stranger to hitting literary home runs, but his second book to feature World War II-veteran-turned-avenging-angel Aloysius Archer, A Gambling Man, (Grand Central) is a flat-out grand slam.
His second adventure finds Archer heading west to Los Angeles — Hollywood, more specifically — in the (eventual) company of a young starlet who will help open his eyes to the sordid underbelly lurking beneath all the glitz and glamour. Hoping to become a gumshoe under the tutelage of a famed private detective, Archer ends up busting heads in this noir masterpiece that echoes as much of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett as film classics in the vein of the Spencer Tracy-led Bad Day at Black Rock do.
A Gambling Man fits corruption under Tinseltown rocks that prove as plentiful as broken dreams. Few authors are able to frame period pieces for a contemporary sensibility, but Baldacci proves more than up to the task of fashioning a tale that’s as close to perfect as a thriller can get.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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Allison Brennan is always good but her latest and most ambitious work ever, Tell No Lies (Mira) is downright spectacular.
When a young environmentalist ends up dead while investigating something nefarious afoot in the Arizona mountains, an FBI crack infiltration unit springs into action. Agents Kara Quinn and Matt Costa find themselves unraveling environmental ruin at the hands of a sinister copper mining refinery. And that just scratches the surface of the evil they find lurking in this once-pristine wilderness.
This is the kind of book that the cliché “ripped from the headlines” was coined to describe. Brennan widens her reach and snares us in an ever-tightening grasp that doesn’t let go until the final page. Take two parts environmental thriller and one part Chinatown-like morality tale and you’ve got a recipe for a riveting page-turner as prescient as it is purposeful.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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Jack Carr’s blistering and bracing The Devil’s Hand (Atria) comes complete with a 25-page glossary to help us make sense of all the technical jargon and acronyms. At the heart of Carr’s fourth thriller to feature former Navy SEAL James Reece, though, is a conspiracy of epic proportions aimed at the heart of American life.
That conspiracy, birthed at the hotbed of tensions that define contemporary Iran, leaves Reece on the front lines of a war few even realize is being fought. Good thing Reece does; his covert mission will lead him to a devastating weapon that has fallen into the hands of an Iranian sleeper agent, capable of tipping the balance of power against the U.S.
Carr expertly treads atop ground previously cultivated by the likes of Brad Thor, Brad Taylor, and Vince Flynn (now Kyle Mills). Tom Clancy may have created this genre, but his successors have mastered it, with Carr coming out on top by serving up an action thriller extraordinaire that is not to be missed.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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Alex Finlay’s tumultuous, terrific and twist-laden Every Last Fear (Minotaur) can best be described as coming from the “nightmare” brand of thrillers: that is, when the life of a character/hero is totally uprooted by an explosive incident.
Here that hero is college student Matt Pine, toiling away at his studies when he learns the bulk of his family has been killed in an apparent accident during a vacation in Mexico. Notice I said “apparent,” because little is what it seems to be in Every Last Fear, including the connection of the recent tragic events to a murder committed by Matt’s older brother. It’s left to Matt to fit the pieces of the deadly puzzle together before he is killed too.
Finlay’s debut reads like a modern-day Marathon Man, pitting a young hero against powerful forces he can’t possibly defeat but must fight in order to stay alive. Every Last Fear features the perfect blend of the psychological and action thriller in what is sure to be one of the most talked-about titles of the year.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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Regular readers of this column likely have a sense that we are in a kind of golden age of thrillers. For further proof of that, look no further than Don Bentley’s The Outside Man (Berkley).
Defense Intelligence Agency operative Matt Drake (Without Sanction) is hardly a stranger to threats, but being attacked by a team of professional killers on the streets of Austin, Texas wasn’t exactly on his bucket list. Winning that battle still leaves a greater war ahead of him, taking Drake to the Middle East and a horrifying plot where the stakes are equally high for both him and the country as a whole.
The Outside Man continues the elaborate and ambitious redefining of the modern-day political thriller, descendants of series like Doc Savage and Don Pendleton’s Executioner. Bentley adds brains to the traditional brawn of yesteryear in crafting a thinking man’s shoot-‘em-up that keeps us on the edge of our seat from beginning to end. (Also check out Dennis Hetzel’s review here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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I never thought I’d write this in a review, but if you play the lottery then Adele Parks’s Just My Luck (Mira) is the book for you.
That’s because a friendly group of couples has been playing the same Powerball numbers for years. It’s not all that unusual, and actually pretty much commonplace, right? Only what happens when the couples aren’t so friendly anymore and the number they’ve long been playing comes in? The couple that holds the winning ticket is about to find out — with deadly ramifications.
Incident-driven thrillers like this are pure putty in the hands of authors like Joe Finder, Sandra Brown and even Lee Child. We can safely add Parks to that list, thanks to this twisty, turn-y tale that never goes exactly where you’d expect. We have some splendid reading entertainment here that’s strewn with surprises to drive the suspense.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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Tim Brady’s Three Ordinary Girls (Kensington) is one of those nonfiction narratives too incredible to believe; it packs power and resonance, in large part thanks to the title characters who, it turns out, are anything but ordinary.
Those three girls, typical Dutch teenagers when we first meet them, become key figures and leaders of the Nazi resistance in the Netherlands during World War II. This riveting entry in the nonfiction thriller genre is jam-packed with episodes that showcase the heroism of the girls. From ferrying Jewish children to safety, to blowing up bridges and buildings, to smuggling arms to their fellow resistance fighters, they define heroism in every way, shape and form.
Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction might well have had Three Ordinary Girls in mind. This is thriller writing of the highest order, as riveting as it is relentless.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
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Cate Holahan’s Her Three Lives (Grand Central) is a cutting-edge thriller of rare depth and pathos, hitting on any number of current tropes that Holahan handles with skill and aplomb.
I think this is my first thriller to feature a hero who’s a social media influencer. Caribbean-born Jade Thompson is her husband Greg’s second wife, a fact that doesn’t sit too well with his children. Before you can say Brady Bunch, Greg is brutally beaten in a home invasion that leads to a homebound life. He’s left living out an eerily sinister version of the classic Hitchcock film Rear Window; only instead of spying on his neighbors, Greg sets his paranoid sights on Jade.
This wondrous carveout of contemporary noir actually echoes more of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. That’s a high bar Holahan sets for herself, but she exceeds it every step of the way. A seminal tale by a rising author to watch.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
A Gambling Man by David Baldacci
David Baldacci is no stranger to hitting literary home runs, but his second book to feature World War II-veteran-turned-avenging-angel Aloysius Archer, A Gambling Man, (Grand Central) is a flat-out grand slam.
His second adventure finds Archer heading west to Los Angeles — Hollywood, more specifically — in the (eventual) company of a young starlet who will help open his eyes to the sordid underbelly lurking beneath all the glitz and glamour. Hoping to become a gumshoe under the tutelage of a famed private detective, Archer ends up busting heads in this noir masterpiece that echoes as much of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett as film classics in the vein of the Spencer Tracy-led Bad Day at Black Rock do.
A Gambling Man fits corruption under Tinseltown rocks that prove as plentiful as broken dreams. Few authors are able to frame period pieces for a contemporary sensibility, but Baldacci proves more than up to the task of fashioning a tale that’s as close to perfect as a thriller can get.
Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan
Allison Brennan is always good but her latest and most ambitious work ever, Tell No Lies (Mira) is downright spectacular.
When a young environmentalist ends up dead while investigating something nefarious afoot in the Arizona mountains, an FBI crack infiltration unit springs into action. Agents Kara Quinn and Matt Costa find themselves unraveling environmental ruin at the hands of a sinister copper mining refinery. And that just scratches the surface of the evil they find lurking in this once-pristine wilderness.
This is the kind of book that the cliché “ripped from the headlines” was coined to describe. Brennan widens her reach and snares us in an ever-tightening grasp that doesn’t let go until the final page. Take two parts environmental thriller and one part Chinatown-like morality tale and you’ve got a recipe for a riveting page-turner as prescient as it is purposeful.
The Devil’s Hand by Jack Carr
Jack Carr’s blistering and bracing The Devil’s Hand (Atria) comes complete with a 25-page glossary to help us make sense of all the technical jargon and acronyms. At the heart of Carr’s fourth thriller to feature former Navy SEAL James Reece, though, is a conspiracy of epic proportions aimed at the heart of American life.
That conspiracy, birthed at the hotbed of tensions that define contemporary Iran, leaves Reece on the front lines of a war few even realize is being fought. Good thing Reece does; his covert mission will lead him to a devastating weapon that has fallen into the hands of an Iranian sleeper agent, capable of tipping the balance of power against the U.S.
Carr expertly treads atop ground previously cultivated by the likes of Brad Thor, Brad Taylor, and Vince Flynn (now Kyle Mills). Tom Clancy may have created this genre, but his successors have mastered it, with Carr coming out on top by serving up an action thriller extraordinaire that is not to be missed.
Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay
Alex Finlay’s tumultuous, terrific and twist-laden Every Last Fear (Minotaur) can best be described as coming from the “nightmare” brand of thrillers: that is, when the life of a character/hero is totally uprooted by an explosive incident.
Here that hero is college student Matt Pine, toiling away at his studies when he learns the bulk of his family has been killed in an apparent accident during a vacation in Mexico. Notice I said “apparent,” because little is what it seems to be in Every Last Fear, including the connection of the recent tragic events to a murder committed by Matt’s older brother. It’s left to Matt to fit the pieces of the deadly puzzle together before he is killed too.
Finlay’s debut reads like a modern-day Marathon Man, pitting a young hero against powerful forces he can’t possibly defeat but must fight in order to stay alive. Every Last Fear features the perfect blend of the psychological and action thriller in what is sure to be one of the most talked-about titles of the year.
The Outside Man by Don Bentley
Regular readers of this column likely have a sense that we are in a kind of golden age of thrillers. For further proof of that, look no further than Don Bentley’s The Outside Man (Berkley).
Defense Intelligence Agency operative Matt Drake (Without Sanction) is hardly a stranger to threats, but being attacked by a team of professional killers on the streets of Austin, Texas wasn’t exactly on his bucket list. Winning that battle still leaves a greater war ahead of him, taking Drake to the Middle East and a horrifying plot where the stakes are equally high for both him and the country as a whole.
The Outside Man continues the elaborate and ambitious redefining of the modern-day political thriller, descendants of series like Doc Savage and Don Pendleton’s Executioner. Bentley adds brains to the traditional brawn of yesteryear in crafting a thinking man’s shoot-‘em-up that keeps us on the edge of our seat from beginning to end. (Also check out Dennis Hetzel’s review here.)
Just My Luck by Adele Parks
I never thought I’d write this in a review, but if you play the lottery then Adele Parks’s Just My Luck (Mira) is the book for you.
That’s because a friendly group of couples has been playing the same Powerball numbers for years. It’s not all that unusual, and actually pretty much commonplace, right? Only what happens when the couples aren’t so friendly anymore and the number they’ve long been playing comes in? The couple that holds the winning ticket is about to find out — with deadly ramifications.
Incident-driven thrillers like this are pure putty in the hands of authors like Joe Finder, Sandra Brown and even Lee Child. We can safely add Parks to that list, thanks to this twisty, turn-y tale that never goes exactly where you’d expect. We have some splendid reading entertainment here that’s strewn with surprises to drive the suspense.
Three Ordinary Girls by Tim Brady
Tim Brady’s Three Ordinary Girls (Kensington) is one of those nonfiction narratives too incredible to believe; it packs power and resonance, in large part thanks to the title characters who, it turns out, are anything but ordinary.
Those three girls, typical Dutch teenagers when we first meet them, become key figures and leaders of the Nazi resistance in the Netherlands during World War II. This riveting entry in the nonfiction thriller genre is jam-packed with episodes that showcase the heroism of the girls. From ferrying Jewish children to safety, to blowing up bridges and buildings, to smuggling arms to their fellow resistance fighters, they define heroism in every way, shape and form.
Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction might well have had Three Ordinary Girls in mind. This is thriller writing of the highest order, as riveting as it is relentless.
Her Three Lives by Cate Holahan
Cate Holahan’s Her Three Lives (Grand Central) is a cutting-edge thriller of rare depth and pathos, hitting on any number of current tropes that Holahan handles with skill and aplomb.
I think this is my first thriller to feature a hero who’s a social media influencer. Caribbean-born Jade Thompson is her husband Greg’s second wife, a fact that doesn’t sit too well with his children. Before you can say Brady Bunch, Greg is brutally beaten in a home invasion that leads to a homebound life. He’s left living out an eerily sinister version of the classic Hitchcock film Rear Window; only instead of spying on his neighbors, Greg sets his paranoid sights on Jade.
This wondrous carveout of contemporary noir actually echoes more of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. That’s a high bar Holahan sets for herself, but she exceeds it every step of the way. A seminal tale by a rising author to watch.
